Category: 1770-1779

Overview

1770-1779

1770-1779, 18th century, decade overview

All Entries

1770-96 – Agostino Brunias, Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape

1770-1779, 1780-1789, 1790-1799, 18th century, artwork analysis

In a late 18th-century painting organized by skin tone, Agostino Brunias has depicted a range of colonial Dominican fashions from the wealthy elite to the poorest people whom they enslaved.

1778 – Thomas Gainsborough, Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliott

1770-1779, 18th century, artwork analysis

This portrait of Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliott (1754?-1823) by English portraitist Thomas Gainsborough was commissioned by Mrs. Elliott’s lover, the Earl of Cholmondeley. First exhibited at Royal Academy, London in 1778, the composition and treatment are reminiscent of Van Dyck.

1778 – David Martin, Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay and Lady Elizabeth Murray

1760-1769, 1770-1779, 18th century, artwork analysis, BIPOC

This 18th-century grand manner portrait of two cousins juxtaposes fashionable turquerie with luxurious but conventional children’s clothing.

1770s – Portrait of a Lady Holding an Orange Blossom

1770-1779, 18th century, artwork analysis, BIPOC

This young woman dressed in blue silk edged with lace demonstrates fashionable simplicity for the 1770s, and may have lived in a Spanish or British colony in the Americas.

1778 – Joseph Siffred Duplessis, Benjamin Franklin

1770-1779, 18th century, artwork analysis

Joseph Siffred Duplessis’s 1778 portrait of Benjamin Franklin participates in his carefully constructed image while in France as a plainly dressed American with provincial taste–though he actually dressed in the most expensive fabrics available.